Sunday, December 5, 2010

Florida Boar Hunt

Finally, a long over due Boar hunt in Florida. It has been over two years now since our last Florida Boar Hunt. This year we vacationed in Sebring Florida, which is about smack dab in the middle of the state.

There is actually a story behind the reason we decided to hunt with the guide we did. When we got to Florida we gave Rock ‘n’ T (our usual guide) a call several times before we received a reply from him on Tuesday. During that time we had been talking to other people at our resort that had given us a number of another guy that would take us out for $100 and allow us to shoot as many boar as we wanted. Too good to be true you ask? The answer is yes. He called us on Wednesday at 4:00 pm, the day before our scheduled hunt with him, and cancelled. We already cancelled our hunt with Rock ‘n’ T’s on Tuesday because we planned on hunting with this guy so we were sitting high and dry. In last minute desperation, I called some numbers that the guy that cancelled on us told me to try and I was able to set a hunt up with the Ockee Hunt Club for Thursday.

When we arrived Thursday Morning at 8:30 am, we drove up on your typical boar hunting farm with big boar hunting buggies and run down farm house. Our guide, who introduced himself as New York, was waiting for us in the driveway as we pulled up.

While New York was getting everything situated a couple of side by sides pulled up with guys that had been hunting for deer earlier in the morning.In the back of one of their side by side was a nice buck.This gave me a good feeling about our boar hunt that we were about to get started on.

As dad and I shot our bows to make sure they were still sighted in, our guide loaded up the dogs into the buggies.This is what keyed us in to the fact that this wasn’t going to be our typical boar hunt.

We drove into a twenty to thirty acre area that was all fenced in and had mostly open land with little sections of thick palm trees.New York released one of the dogs and it went right to work sniffing out the boars.Once it would find a pig it would chase it down until the boar was exhausted.Then it would hold it at bay and allow us to shoot at it.I know what you’re thinking, it sounds like a pretty cheesy hunt.We were thinking the same thing.Just when we thought it couldn’t get anymore canned than this, the dog cornered its first pig.It was a smaller sow and the guide got out of the buggy and grabbed the pig away from the dog and let it go.I thought for a second that he was going to hold it there while I shot it.What fun that would be.

Oh well, we decided to make the best of our hunt and enjoy ourselves.Moments later we heard the dog barking in the distance.When we arrived at the scene, we saw he had cornered a nice size boar in some thick brush.We got down from the buggy and the excitement began.I had an arrow nocked ready for anything.The guide pulled the dog out of the brush and gave me a five yard shot opportunity.I put one right through its heart.Canned or not, it was actually still quite exciting.

Now it was Dads turn.We drove around that little fenced in area for quite some time chasing boars back and forth out of the brush.The boars could out run the dogs and were taking a long time to wear down because it was so cold outside.After a couple hours of trying, the dogs were exhausted.New York went to get one of his “back up” dogs and in no time we were back in business.The dog got one cornered and once he was out of the way, dad took a shot at about twenty yards off from the buggies platform.The first shot hit the boar right in the jaw.Keep in mind these pigs are moving and the dog is in there trying to hold the pig at bay so a lot is going on and it can be very hard to know when you can take a good shot with out hitting the dog while looking through a peep site.After the shot to the jaw, the dog had to try and stop the pig again.It gave him another twenty yard shot.This time he had to shoot through some thick weeds.He used an old arrow with a small fixed blade broad head because he thought the head shot was better placed than what it was.It was a gut shot.This slowed the pig down a lot.He took one more shot at twenty yards, this time with a rage broad head.It was another gut shot, but the rage put such a large hole in the pig that it was all over.

We both had our hogs in the bag by noon.It was a very different experience, and other than it being a canned hunt, it was a pretty good time.